Dark light
by Alice Dread
Summary: All her life, Shilo had wanted freedom. Now what she had it, she didn't know how to handle it. The world was pressing down on her, and she was struggling to stay afloat, alone. Will one bad decision pave the road to her own demise? Shilo x Graverobber.


Shilo walked down the deserted streets in the early morning hours, trying to clear her head. She was been a little absent-minded since the dramatic death of her father. GeneCo fell into the hands of Rotti's three degenerate children; so needless to say, the whole city had fallen into chaos. Upstanding people were few and far between. Everyone had become either a thief or a coward. Crime was at the top of the charts, and even the police force was powerless to stop it all.

The streets were dangerous, especially at this time of night. So then why was Shilo—a frail, friendless, shy little girl—out wandering all on her own?

Her house had been such a big, empty place without her father there, and she was all alone in this world. She had been cooped up for so long that she hadn't been able to make any friends. She didn't even feel the interest in catching bugs in the graveyard anymore. All she did day in and day out was paint. It had been six months since her father had died and left everything to her. And in those six months, she had hand-painted every inch of every wall of the house. She didn't want to waste her inherited money on canvases and easels, so why not paint the place where she was confined?

But one night, when she was finishing up painting the doorframe to the kitchen, a knock disturbed her. She opened her front door to find Amber Sweet standing there, naked but for a black chain thong. She had smelled of sex and death, and something like blood matted in her platinum blond, breast length hair.

Shilo tried to make her go away, not caring for an instant why she had come. But the scalpel slut wouldn't leave. She forced her way into Shilo's home and announced her proposition.

"My brothers and I have decided that we want you to carry on your father's work," Miss Sweet proclaimed, sweeping her hand through the air in an attempt to be graceful and welcoming.

The young woman's eyes widened. "My father's…" She backed away from Amber. "You mean his dirty, wicked, rotten profession. His sin." Anger flared in her eyes. "Get out of my house. Now."

"Is that a no, darling?" Amber cooed. She put her hands on her hips. "Think about it for a second. What else do you have here? You can't find a job. Your inheritance will run out soon enough. What will you do then?"

"I'll figure that out when the time comes," the girl growled. "Leave me."

"Please, Shilo? The Repo Men that we hired to take your father's place haven.t been able to cut it. They don't have what it takes. But I know you do. You have what it takes."

"Why would you assume something like that?"

"I've seen you lurking in the graveyards." Amber smirked sinisterly. "You're fascinated with anatomy. You would play with corpses if you had the balls, but instead you just observe them." She held out her hand. "Take the next step. Be the reason they become so fascinating. Become the person this city fears most." She grinned. "The pay is excellent."

Shilo looked from the woman's outstretched hand to her scarred face and back again. She gritted her teeth. "I said leave this house, and I meant it. Now go!" She screamed the last word. "And don't you ever come back!"

She slammed the door behind the spoiled doll and locked it tightly. The house was quiet yet again, but Shilo's anger still blazed. She whirled around, kicked a can of paint across the floor, and coated the bare wood in a haphazard slash of crimson pastel. She padded through the spilled paint, her bare feet leaving red footprints through the house as she went to her room to change her clothes.

And thus she came to be wandering the streets of the rotting city at that ungodly hour. Through her mother's tomb and into the city through the graves of the ghostyard. She hugged her heavy sweater tighter around her shoulders to shield from the cold. Her eyes never left the pavement before her feet as she walked.

Would she be better off taking that sniveling brat's offer? The idea made her nauseous, but for some reason it tempted her. She had always wondered how it would feel to kill something, especially in the intimate way that Repos were rumored to kill.

Morbidity had been her only friend for a long while. Through her sickness—or rather her poisoning, she had come to learn quite a bit about the human anatomy. Kept up in the house, with nothing on her mind but health and freedom, she sought solace in biology books and medical journals—anything that might lead her to a cure that her father had been unable to find. Funny, now that she thought about it, she had found a cure all on her own, right under her nose. Her cure had been freedom, to pry away from her father's overbearing grip and rebel in a healthy teenage way. All she'd had to do was stop taking her "medication". It seemed so simple now. So obvious. But she had been too naïve then.

Another part of her conscious brain was screeching at her that she was going mad. Why would she even consider doing such a thing? How could she continue her father's work when she had hated him so much for doing it? She would not only be a hypocrite, but she would be slandering the moral memory of her father. In truth, she had loved her father. He was her world. Being lied to hadn't been easy on her, but even through that the love showed. If she took the siblings up on their offer, what would that make her? It would make her worse.

Her father had been forced into the job. She would be choosing it.

She knotted her fingers in her hair. What was she going to do?


End file.
